It always slightly disappointing when a rider opts out of the bigs, but I'll be sad to see Katrin Garfoot slip somewhat away once the circus leaves Oztown. I almost wish she had discovered road cycling a bit sooner, because she's an athlete who seems still to be growing and surely had more wins in her.

Elsewhere it was good to see Annette Edmondson get an early win. It's a lot more cosmo at Wiggle-Honda these days: think I'd be right in saying that no rider on the roster has been there since the beginning. Can't wait to see what they can get out of Barbieri and Stewart (once she's mended).

She's very handy at the lumpier, short stage races, the sort of event that the women's calendar still rather lacks, in my opinion. You have the Women's Tour (of Britain), TDU, Emamukeen Bira, Thüringen and a couple of French races but perhaps a few more would enable the peloton to diversify a bit.

There really isn't much solid racing out there for the featherweights, for example, or the TTers.

As of this season, there's a 137km Brabantse Pijl for the women too, backing up Flanders Classics' effort to push women's equivalents for all of the events it promotes.

In reality though, it existed already for a couple of seasons under the name of the Pajot Hills Classic and took place then as now at Gooik, where a car recently knocked me off my bike. So it's entirely in character, then, that Flanders Classics should scoop up a local race run by local organisers in the name of global domination.

The parcours consists of a number of loops at the extreme opposite side of Flemish Brabant to the men's race and features some of the steep little stinkers that one faces when heading back from Geraardsbergen, including the Congoberg. The roads are narrow, with crap concrete surfaces and tight corners but the wind is unlikely to be a factor today.

Last year's winner Edmondson will not be on the start line since isn't fielding a team here but 2016 victor Vos, who must be desperate to show some decent form at this point, will lead . Her biggest rivals will be Marta Bastianelli, who is flying right now, Ensing, Van Dijk and probably D'Hoore.

Van Vleuten is out with her injury sustained in the Ronde and neither nor will be present. Several invitation teams will make up the numbers and, of these, Keukens Redant will field a rider with the coolest name I have ever seen in the women's peloton:

Flemish regional broadcaster VRT reports an average of 280,000 viewers for coverage of women's cycling during the Spring campaign.

While 1.25m viewers tuned in to the men's Ronde, 113,497 actually gave this up for a while to switch over to the finale of the women's edition.

The increase is particularly encouraging since the first time the women's race was broadcast in 2016, less than 5000 watched the finish.

This was VRT's first Spring with a broader coverage of women's racing, since in previous years it has only televised the Ronde. Bosses are happy with the results and will continue in the future, when the aim will be to keep the footage on the same channel and not force viewers to switch.

Women's road racing still has a long way to go to match the confidence given to cyclo-cross, where the women's events are very well attended and produced relatively cheaply.

Last weekend's Dwars door de Westhoek (1.1) was noteworthy for its winner, the Vietnamese Thi That Nguyen.

Nguyen was riding under the UCI's World Cycling Centre Team colours in what was probably her first ever race with significant cobbles and she beat Dutch star-to-be Lorena Wiebes and former World Junior Champion Elisa Balsamo in an 8-woman sprint.

The sprinter is riding in her second sojourn in Europe, the first having been a brief campaign in 2016, and in four appearances so far, she has one DNF, two top 10s and last weekend's win.

The UCI WCCT showed up with one rider from each of the following countries:

Audrey Cordon-Ragot won her fourth French national TT title yesterday but she hinted at how difficult it had been to get motivated for it:

Quote

Yes [I had a solid Spring], but when you're in an environment that doesn't give you confidence ... it's not easy. When you have to look after yourself, when it's not the staff managing you but rather you managing the staff, it's hard and you no longer have the desire to race.

Always an interesting proposition regardless of gender: how do you ride a Nats RR as a sole or near sole representative of your team when another team turns out almost a full complement of compatriots?

In the recent Belgian championships, for example, there were something like 19 starters for and not so fewer but neither team was able to make a big impact on the final result. That has not always been the case, of course, and things can get very tactical as a result.

Numbers are not quite so skewed with smaller teams in the women's sport but the élite level counts in France where we have eight ladies with a massive numerical advantage over bigger but crucially isolated names (PFP, Cordon-Ragot, Labous, Biannic).

The answer for these individuals is, of course, to collaborate but as we know, alliances of mutual interest are not always easy to forge in a complex situation such as a one-day race.

With this year, Séverine Eraud suggests that an attacking race would be necessary to break the stranglehold of but Cordon-Ragot's insight is more subtle: "I think this year, a lot more will be riding for themselves ... FDJ didn't get on the podium in the ITT, so that's a good sign ... I think we'll be able to play on that self-interest. We'll have to talk amongst ourselves and we'll sort something out."

I have to be honest Rochelle and her cynical play for the BC link and with Wiggins' charity gifting some of the GB girls money whilst they were on her team, really didn't endear me to her. Then all her commentary and the "cycling is so moving on and it is now so much stronger than it ever has been, Women's road cycling started at year zero at London 2012 as Lizzie crossed the line behind Vos" fake news, is another highly annoying habit. The fact that she was such a vocal voice for no minimum wage, also played very badly as she should have just declared herself out of the debate due to her highly vested interest.

So with the new, stronger women's cycling scene it is interesting to read that story.

Quite what the genesis of the problems, we are not told, but I am feeling a sense of schadenfreude.

TEAM SUNWEB! takes the TTT in Giro Rosa! Considering how the world's played out last year - where the women took first and the men had to follow their example - this gives me a little excitement for the Tour.

And chapeau to for taking 2nd by 1 second!

Not much coverage for the Giro Rosa - but should be daily highlights available, although I may have to watch in Italian, but I'm going to watch this one.

Not much coverage for the Giro Rosa - but should be daily highlights available, although I may have to watch in Italian, but I'm going to watch this one.

There is a so-called 'delayed livestream' - which is really more of a highlights compilation - on pmgsport.it every night.You can check the broadcast times here, and you can watch the video later as well.It will also be on their YouTube channel: PMG Sport

Also, yours truly is writing race reports and articles for Cyclingnews every day, and will be at the race in Italy for stages 6-10.

I went to the girorosa website to check out the stage profiles - only the last two have any serious climbs?!?! And only one each - although the penultimate stage is the Zoncolan and a mt-top finish. The next stage has some cat 1 mt - could not read the profile image - quality sucked. The climb is towards the end, followed by a descent to the finish. I'm rather surprised the route did not have more variation and challenge. And, that they saved the two big stages for last.

Anyway, Lukas, cool that you'll be there!

EDIT: (some time later) The news coverage said today's stage was "the first climbing stage". So I went and looked at the profiles again. And you know what? The profiles on the official site are so bad . . . well, I missed it. So, official site is www.girorosa.it. Another site is https://www.cyclingstage.com/giro-rosa-2018/. The profile there is not as pretty, but it is more accurate.

I went to the girorosa website to check out the stage profiles - only the last two have any serious climbs?!?! And only one each - although the penultimate stage is the Zoncolan and a mt-top finish. The next stage has some cat 1 mt - could not read the profile image - quality sucked. The climb is towards the end, followed by a descent to the finish. I'm rather surprised the route did not have more variation and challenge. And, that they saved the two big stages for last.

Yesterday was a 14-km mountaintop finish, today will be a 15-km mountain time trial. Tomorrow it's a flat-to-rolling stage, then Zoncolan, and a circuitous final stage around Cividale with another cat 1 near the finish.

Fortunately not everyone is a moron and the egomania of the message wound up a number other than myself with suitable tweets made. Again she could not miss the chance to tell everyone that the Year Zero, when women's cycling was invented was 2012 and how it is all such a positive story.

Too often, she is too transparent with the ploys. That whole start up and jumping in with British Cycling and Wiggins' 'charity paying extra top up salaries to Trott and other track riders so she had a squad that the British media could write about was all too distasteful.

From the video it looks like we are not waving goodbye to her but she is going to pop up somewhere in the UCI as women's co-ordinator or somesuch. Look out for more from the new Mk2 Gilmore show.......................

I felt nausious enough times looking at the Mk 1 version. I don't want the Mk 2.

It set me thinking and puzzling a little more about who she signed and then about the dark side of women's cycling. I'll put a further comment over there.